Climate change legislation must be bipartisan to avoid becoming a political target

While everyone was reeling from the shock of Trump winning the 2016 election, another surprising election result went largely unreported. Democratic voters blocked climate change legislation in Washington state. The legislation, Initiative 732, would have been the first carbon tax in the U.S. It would have taxed fossil fuels and returned the revenue to citizens and businesses in the form of tax cuts. It was designed to give a bigger break to low-income families and would have reduced their effective income tax rate from 16.8 percent to 6.8 percent. Given the fact that Washington is a solidly blue state, one might have expected such a measure to pass easily.

Not so! The measure failed with 42 percent of the vote. What happened? Basically, liberals disagreed on how to spend the revenue generated by a carbon tax. The group that sponsored and crafted the legislation, Carbon Washington, wanted to return the revenue to only households and businesses: a simple, transparent distribution strategy that would have required as little increase in government bureaucracy as possible. On the other hand, the Alliance for Jobs and Clean Energy, a coalition of environmental and social justice groups, favored an entirely different revenue distribution model: they wanted to create transition programs for vulnerable workers and energy-intensive businesses, along with cleaning up local pollution and subsidizing clean energy.

Carbon Washington had a bill ready and did the amazing legwork of gathering 300,000 signatures to get it on the 2016 ballot. The alliance didn’t have a bill, but it wanted Carbon Washington to wait until a bill closer to its goals could be crafted and adopt a strategy of “unite the left and pass climate change and social justice legislation without any support from Republicans” (which California has done twice). Carbon Washington had to make a tough call: throw away its work and wait for an unclear plan from the alliance, or forge ahead — possibly without the alliance’s support. Carbon Washington chose the latter, and the bill failed.

The idea of passing climate change legislation without Republican support is alarming to me. Right now, Republicans are dismantling the Affordable Care Act and repealing the Environmental Protection Agency’s Clean Power Plan. Climate change legislation must be bipartisan to prevent it from becoming a political target.

Another liberal concern about revenue-neutral carbon tax legislation — in Washington state and elsewhere — is that biomass and nuclear would not be taxed alongside fossil fuels. These progressives dislike biomass (e.g., ethanol) because it releases at least as much carbon dioxide into the air as is used to grow or make it, whereas wind and solar result in no greenhouse gas emissions during energy generation. Nuclear energy comes with a whole host of issues, from radioactive waste and the risk of meltdowns, to huge expense and the need for strict regulation.

According to Paul Hawken’s rigorously researched book "Drawdown: The Most Comprehensive Plan Ever Proposed to Reverse Global Warming," nuclear and biomass are the 20th and 36th most important ways to reverse global warming, so it’s hard to dismiss these options out of hand. Hawken contends that biomass can be a temporary carbon-neutral “bridge” to fill in the energy gaps until we have better storage for wind and solar. He regards nuclear as a “regrets” solution; it will reduce emissions, but it comes with the aforementioned risks and expense.

My response to both of these objections to a revenue-neutral carbon tax is this: we must not let the perfect be the enemy of the good. We need to reduce carbon emissions as soon possible. We have to get something passed and make sure it won’t be repealed. That means keeping climate change legislation as simple and as bipartisan as possible. Nothing is perfect the first time around. We must construct a solid foundation and build upon it.

Eric Johnson is a web developer and co-leader of the Iowa City Climate Advocates.